Brit Insurance Design Awards 2011

The Plumen lightbulbs

Whenever I visit a museum, I find myself staring at artefacts from civilisations thousands of years before my time or paintings from artists that I could not possibly afford to buy. But whenever I visit the Design Museum in London, I find myself staring at objects that may as well sit in my living room. In fact, most of the times I am pleasantly surprised that I own some of them. This is what happened when I visited the Brit Insurance Design Awards exhibition.

The Brit Insurance Design Awards exhibition, organised annually at the Design Museum, is the culmination of the awards, established in 2003 to celebrate examples of innovative design. A judging panel made up of renowned design experts decides the best entries from nominations in seven categories: Architecture, Transport, Graphics, Interactive, Product, Furniture and Fashion. The nominations also come from renowned design experts, who are asked to provide up to 5 nominations representing the most innovative designs launched in the last year.

Compared to the previous year, the exhibition was sparse, with many nominations being represented by photographs and videos rather than copies of the actual object: a sensible solution for entries in the architectural or services but not for the others categories. The display tables were also wobbly, strengthening my perception that the exhibition was carelessly thought and set up. Rather than scattering objects, a more sensible approach would have been to group them according to their nomination categories and to use innovative display forms and multimedia to encourage the visitor to interact with the exhibits.

LED-light installation by Phillips

Besides products showcased in electronic tablets (iPads and others), which the visitor was encouraged to explore, all others could not be touched, even though they were within reach, apart on the front of the exhibition, where some select real-life items were available for interaction. These included Herman Miller’s Sayl Task chair, a bench made from recycled cardboard, several books and the playful Spun chair http://www.heatherwick.com/magis-spun-chair/ by Thomas Heatherwick.

The diversity of the products and the variety of design methods employed made it difficult for me to pick my favourites (and I am sure it is equally difficult for the judges to pick the winners among many nominations). However, there have been several objects that caught my attention, sometimes for the novelty of the design and sometimes for the innovative choice of materials.

Wall Piercings by Flos

Flos took part in the exhibition with Wall Piercings, an interesting display of LED rings of changing colours (which for an unknown reason was very difficult to photograph), whereas Phillips included a LED-light bench that responded to human movement and made the LED panels move. The Fashion Design Award was given to Jil Sander for her 2011 +J collection for Uniqlo (for which you can read more here, here and here) whereas the Transport award was awarded to the Barclays Cycle hire project in London, the infamous Boris bikes. Finally, the overall Brit Insurance Design of the Year award went to Plumen lightbulb, an innovative, aesthetically pleasing redesign of a low-energy light bulb that looks differently depending on the angle you watch it.

Plumen lightbulb close-up

Overall, even though the previous exhibition included more design objects than the current one, it is definitely worth visiting to celebrate last year’s good designs and to witness that some of these do not only end up in museum stands but may find refuge in the comfort of your home.

Lambda.

P.S.: The exhibition is still open and will last until 7th August 2011.